


gears and meat.

by governmenthooker



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Ending, Child Loss, F/M, Gen, Human Experimentation, I'm Bad At Tagging, Loss of Limbs, Robot/Human Relationships, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23682523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/governmenthooker/pseuds/governmenthooker
Summary: Sarah Connor had witnessed things turn for the worst one too many times. In her life, such a thing was almost like clockwork... Judgement day was no longer an imminent threat, it wasn’t a nightmare to keep her up at night… It was here. It had happened- and the machines had won.
Relationships: Sarah Connor/The Terminator
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	gears and meat.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WAS SO LONG I HAD TO SPLIT IT IN TWO! I promise I'll have the second part up asap. Happy national horny day! (,:

Sarah Connor had witnessed things turn for the worst one too many times. In her life, such a thing was almost like clockwork.

Before all of this, her life had been normal. She was just a girl, struggling to get by, waitressing every day to pay bills and put food on her own table. Sure, things were hard; but she was happy. Then, she was safe. Things were different. Then things changed.

May 19th, 1984.

Sarah would remember that date for the _rest_ of her life. The day her life went spiraling down… The day her innocence was taken. The day she learned of the truth of what was to come for her and the entire human race.That day was so long ago now… if it weren’t for the trauma, her memories would no doubt be muddled. It was easy to lose track of memories, especially exact dates, in times like this, but some of her wounds were very-much still open.

Sarah always tried to look back on her life and smile, but most of the time, those memories just came with heartbreaking nostalgia of a life she’d never know again. She wanted to go back. She’d been struggling, sure— but nothing compared to the hell her life was now.

Judgement day was no longer an imminent threat, it wasn’t a nightmare to keep her up at night… It was here. It had happened, and the machines had won.

Truthfully, even though Sarah had been preparing for it for so long now, it still snuck up on her— hitting her like a load of bricks. The machines were here, and they were putting up one hell of a fight. Just like she had been warned of so many years before.

Everything about it had been so awful, so devastating and mentally taxing to go through at first. Sarah had to constantly pick up the pieces of her shattered sanity. Having to live in this environment, let alone with a child, was almost unbearable. There was nothing to be done though… this was Sarah Connor’s life now. It had been for quite a while.

The war against the machines had stolen so much from her in the past few years. Her health, her sanity, her family… Everything was gone. Nothing was sacred. Every living being was just a target for the machines to kill, or another warm body to enslave. The machines didn’t care- why would they be able to, anyways?

_No one_ was safe. Sarah had seen even the strongest of her acquaintances wiped out like tiny little ants. No matter how many times she would have to see that happen, it would always be a jarring thing to experience first hand…

Kyle Reese, the love of her life and the father of her child…had been killed right before her. Just like that.

One of those machines- THAT machine, that _monster_ … it had survived every attempt to destroy it… They’d ran, ran into that factory- Cyberdyne’s factory… The machine was relentless, not giving up. It had followed them. It was hunting them… it was succeeding. It was going to kill Sarah… it was going to win. It was right in front of her. Kyle didn’t have a choice… Kyle had a mission, and _he_ was going to win.

It happened so quickly… Sarah ran… then she heard the explosions. Kyle was dead. Sarah got to hold him only for a moment. It was over before she knew it. Just. Like. that.

This was years ago, sure, but the fact that something like this, a pain most women would never know, was her initiation into her new world… It made Sarah sick to her stomach.

Sarah had learned to cope with loss. She knew it was a wound that would heal with time… So many people would tell her these things… That everything gets easier, everything would be okay. Sarah had heard it a million times, from a million different people. Sooner or later though, most of those people would end up dead.

It happened every day, and it would continue to happen as long as those machines were in the world. Their mission was always the same; round up as many ‘organics’ as they could and decide to snatch them up or snuff them out…

Women and children were almost _always_ killed. Recalling how many times she had seen such a thing happen, something she never dreamed of seeing in her lifetime, always chilled Sarah to her core. She’d watched countless friends get slaughtered in battle, she’d seen people die of hunger and disease left and right...

She’d have to go to bed wondering if the people next to her were really who they seemed.

The unthinkable always happens in war. Sarah had learned that in school when she was a little girl. It was just a fact. War brings out the worst for people. She just never imagined it really happening to her… Sarah remembered feeling that way when Kyle had come to her so many years ago, telling her stories of the inevitable war and the machines sent to kill her. Sarah never wanted to believe it.

She wanted it all to be a dream.

Laying in that passenger seat of one of those many stolen cars, sitting in that parking lot, as Kyle told of his life in the future… Those haunting, gory details of what life was like. How our world would be broken by the machines- by Skynet and their war. Kyle had spoken briefly about the technology Skynet would be capable off… those things he called “H-Ks”. He talked of being taken, being branded… that mark that looked like an ordinary barcode on his arm…

Sarah didn’t believe it… She didn’t want to. It was all too much, too quick…

Later that night after that awful shootout at the police station, when they laid together in the streets, Sarah listened to Reese tell more stories of the future war—What it was like to hide from the Infiltrators, how he’d learned to fight, how he was always miserable…

Sarah had slept eventually, _miraculously._ But she only had dreams about that very life… She awoke and lowly spoke to Kyle,

“Your world is pretty terrifying.”

But that world, that horrible, terrifying world, was Sarah’s now too. Everything that Kyle had told her that was so new, so terrifying to her then… It was all her life now. She had grown used to all of it.

Sarah had adapted to life in the middle of the future war. She’d learned to cope, to survive… Having a child fueled her need to carry on of course, but her strength came from pain… from resilience to fight these things that taken her life from her.

When John came into the picture, Sarah had really tried to give him the best life possible. Her fellow resistance fighters knew how important her son was…how important both of the Connors were. With John in her life, Sarah found it harder to go into combat… Though she wanted to fight, to keep pounding these hunks of metal into the ground where they belonged, Sarah found herself being protected more and more by her human brethren.

“ _If Kyle were here, he’d want you to stay in the bunker!_ ” was a phrase Sarah heard time and time again. Maybe it was true, Sarah knew Kyle would want the mother of the resistance to stay safe and protect John Connor… but Sarah would always protest, feeling guilty for not fighting her fight. 

But no, she was to stay in the darkness of the Resistance bunker, protected by layers of concrete and an arsenal of soldiers to guard her and her son. It had been like this for the first two years of John’s life.

Sarah wished she could give him another life… Deep down she knew this was no life any child deserved. Even before having a kid of her own, Sarah felt so awful for the children living in this hellish life. They didn’t deserve this… They didn’t ask for this.

Sarah wished she could show John a beautiful world… Not the cold, claustrophobic bunker they called home. A world with a blue sky and a bright sun instead of fluorescent lights and a concrete ground. Sarah wanted her son to sleep feeling safe, not worry about these too-mature risks surrounding them every minute of every day.

Sarah had lost her faith a long time ago, but every night, she would pray for a better life… a better life for her, for John, for everyone.

Days tended to bleed together during combat. Sarah would spend so many days locked away in the bunker, isolated and safe… and that would be it. There would be no action except for daily tasks and training exercising here and there, plus having to take care of John of course. But that would be it. There would be nothing but the war that stayed outside the walls.

Then, out of nowhere, the violence would rear it’s ugly head…it’s ugly, mechanical, inhuman head…

Raids. An influx of injured troops. Bombs. Everything horrible about combat you could think of would just happen, what felt like, all at once.

It would always be like any other day when the raids would happen. Sarah had been through so many; she always knew what to do. Grab the nearest weapon, hide John, and run like hell. It was, among many other things, like clockwork. Sarah would almost always go into auto-pilot… a comparison she didn’t like to make.

This raid, this day though… Sarah couldn’t remember everything about this one in particular.

She’d heard the shouting, heard the lasers firing around her. Instincts kicked in; She followed her routine as chaos unfolded around her. Screams. Fire. Death. Oh, just the usual things she had grown so used to.

John had only been sleeping on a cot nearby, thank goodness. Sarah immediately awoke him, grabbing him and running to a safe room- one she knew was only a few meters away. If she could get in there with a weapon, bolt the door, and wait, they’d be golden like always! She’d done this so many times!

With John in her arms, Sarah frantically looked for a weapon. A knife, a gun— SOMETHING. She wasn’t allowing herself to be cornered by one of these metal beasts. Everything was working against Sarah though; Not wanting to keep still, she ran through the bunker as she looked and looked for a mean of defense.

Nothing that she could see. _Shit_. _SHIT_. _SHIT_.

Sarah felt like she could not move quick enough- couldn’t find a weapon quick enough, couldn’t run quick enough, couldn’t think quick enough. Everything was too quick, too dire in these situations.

Still searching desperately on her way deeper into the bunker, Sarah turned a corner, nearly losing her footing. Regaining herself, Sarah took a glance over her shoulder.

Color drained from her face in an instant. A pair of emotionless, red eyes stared back from a few paces away. A gun was pointed right at Sarah… right at John. Sarah barely had time to let out a scream before her nightmares came into reality.

Mindlessly, Sarah made the choice to let go of John, pushing him out of her arms and away from the inevitable. She knew he would land safely, even if he would receive some scrapes and bruises… it was better than losing his life.

There was a bang, like a clap of thunder- blinding her and shaking her core… Then there was warmth. A blaze surrounded Sarah suddenly, the force of the blast sending her tumbling forward violently. Sharp ringing filled her ears, and the world around her quickly went from bright to black. She didn’t know if John made it somewhere safe. She just quickly told him to run, find somewhere to hide…

Sarah had tried to keep going, to keep up with her son, but fuck— the pain that hit her was overwhelming, and she had fallen to the floor immediately. She wasn’t sure just what the machine had done, but he had done his job.

Sarah, lying on the cold ground, pulled herself up, beginning to move as far away from ground zero as she could, away from the fire that threatened to eat her whole.

John was all she could think of. She swore she could see him in the distance, laying where he had landed. He wasn’t moving.

Clawing her way along to him, Sarah, gritting, tried to ignore the unforgiving pain below her waist. Sarah had been shot quite a few times, she knew that pain. This was different…More concentrated. Between the blur of smoke and tears, the dots connected when Sarah tried to stand… Everything felt light, but oh so heavy at the same time. Maybe she was okay- just shaken up.

She attempted to regain composure, trying to get a hold of her balance, but just couldn’t…

At first, Sarah was almost _certain_ she was blown completely in two; For all she knew, her intestines and innards could’ve been trailing behind her... She wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest if that was the case. She knew the strength the Hunter-Killers and Infiltrators possessed. Sarah had seen people blown to bits in every sense of the word. She knew what Cyberdyne technology was capable of… She knew the carnage they brought with their presence.

Before finally succumbing to shock, knowing it was looming, Sarah took final look at herself. A pile of blood and gristle surrounded her.It was hard to see the details, and for that Sarah was thankful. But the more she stared, the more it slowly dawned upon Sarah the blood and gristle surrounding her was indeed her own…A clean snap just below her hip- the remnants of her femur jutting out of her leg like an oversized tooth to a gored maw.

Her leg was gone. _Sarah Connor’s leg was gone._ Just… _gone_.

Those metal motherfuckers took her fucking leg!

Sarah truthfully couldn’t react to it completely. Shock had taken a hold of her brain… She had seen carnage just as this so many times before, and she had grown so very used to it, but now that it was _her_ carnage...

She knew she had to fix this somehow- stop the blood, try to get somewhere safe, fight off the Infiltrators— the Terminators… Maybe this wasn’t real- her leg wasn’t gone, it was just her mind playing tricks on her. 

Beside herself, panic begun to sink in. Sarah could feel herself becoming more and more dizzy with each passing second. She quickly looked back to John through the bloodied disarray around her… He was gone too.

Before she could even fully process everything, the absolute gravity of it all, the severity of her wounds and the situation- blood loss overcame her.

Sarah hit the ground, and she hit it hard.


End file.
